


Personally-Tailored Punishment

by Aris Merquoni (ArisTGD)



Category: Project Runway (Canada) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Obedience, Space Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-13
Updated: 2010-08-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 01:55:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArisTGD/pseuds/Aris%20Merquoni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Space Pirate Captain Jessica Biffi doesn't know what to make of Iman's gift: the servitude of one of her former rivals. Written for the "obedience" prompt for kink_bingo 2010.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Personally-Tailored Punishment

"She's yours, captain," Iman said.

Captain Jessica Biffi of the Free Trader ship _Katharine Hepburn's Revenge_ bowed, as one _did_ when Queen Iman gave you a present or an order or anything, really, but she stared at the unhappy captive in front of her in confusion. Everyone in the Free Traders had heard about what Kim Cathers had done, boarding a convoy of UniFed ships on the Luna-Titan run which had unfortunately been carrying one of Iman's mentors and old friends. Iman had ordered Cathers' ship broken up for scrap, her lieutenants had been scattered to the solar winds and whatever ships would take them on, but the unlucky captain hadn't been seen for a week.

"Thank you, your majesty," Jessica finally said. "Uh, what do you want me to do with her?"

Iman shrugged. Jessica figured there was something special going on in the Europa palace's gravity systems, something that let Iman look impossibly regal no matter what she was doing. "Whatever you wish," she said. "I know she's given you insult in the past."

Jessica traded a swift glance with Adejoke, her first lieutenant, who shrugged unhelpfully. Then she looked at the sorry figure Cathers made, head bowed, stringy blonde hair falling in her eyes, hands bound with stranglewire. "Okay," she said, and "Thank you," again, because in the Free Traders it was always good to work to stay on Iman's good side. Then she took the loop of cord connected to Cathers' cuffs and led her, unresisting, out of the room.

When they got through the airlock, Brian, Iman's majordomo and go-to guy, was waiting for them. "Here are her papers of registry," he said, handing Ade the data slip as Jessica's hands were full. "She's been marked and signed over to you in full."

"Woah, wait," Jessica said. "So this is legit? I mean, like UniFed legit?"

Brian raised an eyebrow at her, and she shut up. It wasn't like any of them gave a shit about UniFed, which was why they were pirates in the first place, but it was another thing entirely to have someone's indenturement papers in your hand, all legal and above-board. Kim must have _really_ pissed Iman off.

Jessica cleared her throat and looked over at Kim again. She looked, if anything, even more dejected. "What am I supposed to do with her?"

Brian looked from Kim to Jessica and raised his eyebrows. "Well, you have a couple considerations," he said. "You're responsible for her, now. You'll want to keep an eye on her." He paused. "And you don't want to piss Iman off."

"Yeah, that's my major life goal," Jessica admitted. "That and showing Sunny up at next Accession Ball. Thanks, Brian."

She wound up getting Ade to re-calculate oxygen for one additional crewmember, taking Kim back to the _Revenge_ and giving her a crew cabin with a lock on the outside. "So," she said, standing in the doorway and watching Kim look over the small cabin listlessly. "This is kinda fucked up."

That actually got half a smile out of her captive. "It's no more than I deserve," she said. "I fucked up bigtime, eh? And not just with Laurent's convoy."

Jessica didn't really know what to say to that. "Well, stow yourself for takeoff," she said, "and once we're in the black, I'll find something for you to do."

Adejoke was waiting for her on the bridge. "So the crew's aboard," Ade said, "And our... uh... indentured servant, I guess, is all accounted for in food and air."

"Bitchin', homegirl," Jessica said, bringing up a display of the system's orbital paths. "Let's find some 'trading partners,' yeah?"

"Thaaat is the plan," Ade agreed, pulling up their launch orbits on the screen. Jessica chose their course, and they slipped out of dock and into the unforgiving cold of vacuum.

There was always shit to do on a spaceship; it was pretty easy to give Kim all the jobs nobody wanted to take, scrubbing stuff and changing filters. Jessica assigned a junior crewmember to keep an eye on her, but Kim just kept her head down and scrubbed with the best of them.

After they traded a UniFed convoy their lives for a ton of air and fuel, Jessica had enough time to think about Kim again. It was weird; Kim had been nice enough when they'd first met, however many years ago when they were fresh-faced Free Traders, run off from home and joining up with whoever'd take them, both working off their first year's apprenticeship under Captain Swaby. But then something had soured; when they'd both earned their own ships, Jessica had made a few high-profile captures and given over some pretty sweet tithes to Iman, and Kim had made a few high-profile screwups. When Iman had said that Kim had given Jessica insult, she had understated the issue considerably--Kim had gone out of her way to snub, undercut, and undermine Jessica wherever she could.

And now here she was, stuffed into a cabin in Jessica's hold, and not even complaining about it.

Jessica dismissed Jaclyn, who was keeping watch over Kim's cabin, and knocked. "Okay, so, what the fuck is going on?" she asked when Kim opened the door.

Kim blinked a few times. "With what?"

"With you, eh?" Jessica waved vaguely, then waved again purposefully at Kim's room. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah," Kim said, stepping back. "I mean, it's your ship."

"Yeah, I guess it is my ship," Jessica said, laughing a bit. "Okay."

Kim's room didn't have much stuff in it; she'd checked out a reader and some bookreels, which were scattered over a desk, but she hadn't brought any luggage in, and her walls were bare, not even keyed to a color other than the standard gunmetal.

"So what's up?" Jessica said, folding down the extra seat from the wall as Kim perched on her bunk. "What's with the whole... toiling in nobility thing?"

Kim shook her head. "It's... it's just something I've gotta do," she said.

Jessica frowned. Okay, Kim had done some messed up stuff, but Jessica wasn't mad at her--okay, maybe for some of that stuff she'd done, but not mad enough to keep her in indefinite indentured servitude. "Okay, well, you've definitely been working hard, so I can talk to Iman, y'know? Maybe wing it into a second apprenticeship or something?"

Kim stared at her for a second, then ducked her head, shaking a negative. "That's not it," she said. "It's not Iman. It's something I have to do."

"Oh... okay," Jessica said, not really seeing.

Kim shook her head again. "Just keep giving me orders, eh? I'll try not to, y'know, fuck it up."

Jessica tilted her head, then shrugged. "Okay-hey, well, I'll leave you to it, then."

"Ahh, I'm so confused," she said to Ade on the bridge later. "It's like, is she just fucking with me?"

"I dunno," Ade said, running down their new cargo list. "Just keep an eye out."

Kim cleaned the entire ship, end-to-end, giving _Katharine_ a shine she hadn't had since her first day out of dock. Doors stopped squeaking, the weird flopping noise in the delta corridor quieted, and the chicken soup machine started dispensing without clogging.

Jessica still didn't know what the fuck was going on.

Finally she decided to have the conversation on her own turf. After they pulled in another prize, Jessica summoned Kim to her cabin.

"Okay," she said, as Kim dug her toe into the decking and Jessica pulled up a chair. "So I'm trying to understand this... thing with you. Because I'm still confused."

Kim bit her lip and shook her head. "Y'know, I just want to... do the best I can, following your orders, eh?"

"Yeah, but," Jessica said, "you're really surprisingly into the whole domestic drudgery thing. Before this I figured you'd rather mortify your own flesh with white-hot pokers than take orders from me, y'know? What's up?"

Kim looked, if anything, even more miserable. "I've wised up," she finally said. "Seriously. Order me to do anything, I'll do it."

Jessica rolled her eyes. "Oh, c'mon. If I order you to take your top off--"

Kim... wasn't wearing a bra, she noticed a second later, as Kim dropped her shirt on the deck. And her tiny brown nipples were awfully perky in the fairly warm air of the cabin.

"Like that?" Kim asked, rubbing her left elbow with her right hand but otherwise standing up straighter than Jessica had seen her manage in a while.

"Okay, yeah, for instance," Jessica said. "Or I could order you to tell me, honestly, why you're doing this."

Kim stared at her, wide-eyed.

Jessica closed her eyes for a second, semi-reluctantly, then opened them, looked farther up so she was actually looking Kim in the face (dammit), and said, "I order you to tell me why you're doing this."

Kim bit her lip again, then blurted, "Because you're really hot!"

That shouldn't have taken her as aback as it did. She knew she was hot--well, she'd put a lot of work into convincing herself, anyway, and deciding that she was right to believe so, but Jessica had been a spacer kid, and if there was one thing spacer kids learned it was an intimate relationship with mass and inertia. And while the newest Biddell Drive didn't care how much mass your ship carried, the jibes about "extra thruster fuel" still echoed from Jessica's past.

So it wasn't so much that she was surprised to be called hot as she was shocked it was Kim who was saying it.

Her surprise must have shown, because Kim started babbling, "I mean, it's not just--I realized, y'know, that I thought--that I was attracted to you, and I kinda flipped out. I mean, I couldn't deal. And I turned into a raging asshole, a bit? And I'm really sorry, and I didn't know how else to deal with it--"

"Because you're..." Jessica waved up and down Kim's advertisement-perfect frame, "And you didn't want..."

"I was stupid!" Kim protested. "And I started doing stupid things, and everything blew up in my face, and then Iman was asking what I thought a fair punishment was, and I thought, fuck, I have fucked this up beyond belief, haven't I? And I just thought... maybe I could make it up to you. A bit."

Kim was back to chewing on her lip, which was really distracting. "Okay," Jessica said, "first, stop biting your lip."

Kim pressed her mouth into a prim line. Jessica stood, smirking, feeling a sudden flush of power at Kim's prompt compliance.

"Get on your knees," she ordered, and Kim sank gracefully to the floor with the start of a smile on her face. "You're going to show me just how sorry you are."

"I can do that," Kim said, her smile the happiest Jessica had seen since she'd stepped on board. "I can do anything you tell me to."


End file.
